


Itsy Bitsy Spider

by HazelGatoya



Series: Between the Devil and the Digital Sea [6]
Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Being the devil is suffering, Gen, Homura is not okay, One spider, Post-Canon, Post-Rebellion Story, post-rebellion, quite a few mentions of drowning, she's doing her best though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24104239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelGatoya/pseuds/HazelGatoya
Summary: There is a spider on the floor of her bathtub, next to a clump of her hair.It rests on the shelf for mere moments before moving again, this disastrous attempt at escape resulting in it falling to the floor of the tub again.It is on the floor again by the time she is lathering her hair with conditioner.
Series: Between the Devil and the Digital Sea [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659613
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	Itsy Bitsy Spider

**Author's Note:**

> Holy heck, writing in present tense is unsettling and weird, but that might just be because I'm not used to it.

There is a spider on the floor of her bathtub, next to a clump of her hair. 

She hadn't noticed it until now. She frowns, picking up the clump, and the spider jolts to life, clinging to the strands of darkness dangling from her fingers. She sets it on one of the shelves so that it can steer clear of the water on it's own, and picks up her shampoo so that she can start washing the hair that is actually attached to her head. 

She frowns as she watches the spider stagger to its... leg tips? Arachnids don't have feet, but what's more important is the fact that this one is moving to the edge of the shelf, trying to climb up the slippery wall. It falls to the next porcelain shelf, and her frown deepens as she angles herself so that the falling water is not hitting the foolish creature. The shampoo bar in her hand is forgotten and suds run unnoticed down her hair as she focuses on the soggy invader. 

It rests on the shelf for mere moments before moving again, this disastrous attempt at escape resulting in it falling to the floor of the tub again. She watches it before her blue eyes scan the shelves for something she can use to pick it up- she doesn't want to touch it, even if the thought of a far, far larger spider doesn't make her shudder anymore. Hasn't in years. She dangles more detached hair in front of the spider while she searches. It does not take the lifeline, crawling away from it.

So she picks up the tube with the baking powder mix for her face instead. It's much like a paper one would use to pick up a bug against their will... she scoops up the floundering spider, standing on her tiptoes to deposit it on a shelf that is higher up, out of the water's reach.

It is on the floor again by the time she is lathering her hair with conditioner.

This time, she does nothing. Just watches with pursed lips as the arachnid weakly crawls around and then, inevitably, stops. Drowns.

She scoops it up again with the tube, placing it on a shelf so that she doesn't step on it and add insult to injury. On top of that, she still doesn't want to touch it. If the foolish creature had just stayed off of the floor, it wouldn't have died.

Or perhaps it would have. Perhaps she was just prolonging its suffering, since it was already half-drowned. Or perhaps it simply _wanted_ to die. That happened to humans all of the time, why not spiders?

She could have done more for it, she supposes. Stopped time, dealt with the inconvenience of dripping all over her bathroom and gotten it somewhere dry, but... that would be so much energy that she needed to slap around entropy used on one tiny spider that seemed so intent on drowning anyways. Thousands of spiders died every day.

Thousands of humans died every day. A young girl had drowned in a swimming competition just yesterday, another girl in a rural town had died in a river just a day after this universe came into being. She had seen countless deaths secondhand, filled with the grief of the entire world because that was what was needed for her to effectively run the system. Blood covered her much the same way that water did now. 

And yet, most of those deaths had been far less foolish than this spider's. If someone was walking towards their own demise, who was she to stop them?

Homura's hand clenches like a vice around the tube of baking powder cleanser, and far too much of the substance is squirted into her waiting palm. She stares down at it, and then lathers it up and puts it on her face anyways. The resulting dry feeling despite the water hitting where the mixture had touched iss almost _satisfying._

She still doesn't feel clean or human when she turns the water off, but she doubted that the spider had helped with either of those. If only it had just...

Just what?

She didn't know it well enough to have a chance at saving it. 

She doesn't know this world well enough to keep it from being devoured, and that's why she keeps her goals realistic.

"You were humming "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" under your breath during class," Madoka remarks later, during their time on the roof with the rest of the group, and Homura stiffens badly, her hands rising up, but she stops herself before she claps. Madoka tilts her head, confusion and concern coloring her pink gaze. "I was just... wondering why. I've never heard you humming before."

Maybe she is a little more rattled by the whole experience than she is letting herself believe.


End file.
